


"Afghanistan or Iraq?"

by wistfulpisces



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Awkwardness, Canon Compliant, Episode: s01e01 A Study in Pink, First Meetings, Fluff, Idiots in Love, John is already head over heels, Love at First Sight, M/M, Sherlock is desperate to impress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 12:43:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15364965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wistfulpisces/pseuds/wistfulpisces
Summary: “This is an old friend of mine, John Watson.” His pointing the man out is completely unnecessary, but Sherlock hardly even registers it, attention fixed elsewhere.The mobile shimmers like a mirage as John passes it to him. It feels small in his grasp; he flicks the screen upwards to reveal the keypad. There is no passcode.Isolated. Lives alone – in that case, his presence here is definitely as expected.“Afghanistan or Iraq?”Their first meeting, but from Sherlock’s perspective.





	"Afghanistan or Iraq?"

**Author's Note:**

> I owe Mike everything.

The laboratory door opens just as Sherlock discards his pipette. The two drops he’d deposited onto the petri dish cause a precipitate to form in the blue solution. _Brilliant._

He looks up and – oh. Mike has returned from his lunch break (a large flat white with two sugars, a ham sandwich and an afterthought of a cinnamon doughnut) with a guest.

Mike Stamford is a fairly antisocial man, without a sprawling circle of friends. He lives with his longtime girlfriend Fiona and their pet Labrador, makes monthly visits to his parents’ home in Blackpool, and has generally amicable-in-passing relationships with the other lecturers at Barts. The appearance of the man who enters the room with him is a stark anomaly.

A thought occurs to him while he half-heartedly sifts through a cabinet in the sitting room of his mind palace, leafing through the events of the day. _It may be a rarity, but is it entirely unexpected?_

“A bit different from my day.” The stranger is a medical man, then.

Sherlock cannot help himself from glancing back at this whirlwind of vibrant intrigue, clad in an unassuming checked button-up and a grey coat. His mind cycles through perceived details and subsequent deductions with such rapidity that he forces himself to focus once again on the petri dish. _Limp, cane, haircut, stance, clothing. More data needed._

Sitting down, Sherlock makes a hasty decision, one that is quite possibly bolder than any other he’s made in the last several years. He reminds himself that his phone is switched to silent before he takes an imperceptible breath inward and speaks.

“Mike, can I borrow your phone? There’s no signal on mine.”

_Lie._

As soon as the perfectly measured words are free from his mouth, Sherlock’s throat feels like it closes. He concentrates on trying to settle his uneasy stomach, purposefully averting his gaze in an attempt to assist the effort.

“And what’s wrong with the landline?” Mike sounds only peripherally interested, despite already wondering what exactly Sherlock is playing at.

“I prefer to text.”

Finally: the calculated effect.

“Sorry, it’s in my coat.”

Sherlock glances up just as Mike’s head drops to observe the assorted paraphernalia that litter the laboratory bench before him, all of which he is already familiar with. A tiny, lopsided smile tugs at his lips; Sherlock supposes that he understands the challenge.

“Er, here,” the stranger says, already reaching into his pocket. “Use mine.”

His face is so open that Sherlock pauses for a moment. Holding his phone upright in offering, his eyebrows are raised. This man trusts enough in the judgment of Mike, whom he surely hasn’t had contact with since their university days, to willingly lend his mobile to a complete stranger. A mobile phone is typically an item of such personal attachment – with the contact information of loved ones, messages, photographs, various other individualised details – that Sherlock finds this act particularly telling. This man seems as much of an open book as it is possible for another person to be.

“Oh. Thank you.”

Sherlock rises from his seat and glances at Mike as he makes his way over. Catching himself tugging slightly at his left blazer sleeve, he is glad for the distraction Mike’s voice gives him – it functions as an anchor into the situation that he can _feel_ , even now, holds immeasurable significance.

“This is an old friend of mine, John Watson.” His pointing the man out is completely unnecessary, but Sherlock hardly even registers it, attention fixed elsewhere.

The mobile shimmers like a mirage as John passes it to him. It feels small in his grasp; he flicks the screen upwards to reveal the keypad. There is no passcode. _Isolated. Lives alone – in that case, his presence here is definitely as expected._

“Afghanistan or Iraq?”

Mike’s grin unfurls like hawk’s wings. He’s enjoying himself far too much, it seems.

“Sorry?” John says in a quiet voice. Unassuming, again.

_If brother has green ladder arrest brother._  
_SH_

Sherlock contemplates deleting the text from John’s sent message bank, but decides against it; there’s something intriguing about it from an outsider’s perspective. Perhaps it would benefit John to have something concrete to remember him by, even if that period of time turns out to be only brief. Sherlock then ignores the odd twinge of his stomach and its having occurred at the same time as when the latter thought crossed his mind. He dismisses it as a coincidence, having far more pressing information to consider.

“Which was it, Afghanistan or Iraq?” Sherlock turns at the neck to direct the full force of his stare onto John and is almost surprised at the blank expression on John’s face: appearing to be neither irritated nor stupid, he is simply processing – in a remarkably calm manner – the question and its implications about the man who asked it.

Mike hadn’t told him anything about Sherlock – no words of warning or admiration. Probably a good thing.

On a whim, Sherlock texts himself. Throughout the course of the past forty-five seconds, he has inexplicably developed the distinct impression that this man, this _enigma_ , will remain in his life for the foreseeable future, for better or for worse. It therefore seems only logical that Sherlock would very much like to have his phone number. The message reads simply:

_Oh._

Keeping his fingers moving quickly so as not to come under suspicion, he deletes the unsigned text from John’s sent messages immediately.

“Er, Afghanistan. Sorry, how did you–?” John’s gaze drops to his feet as his shoes shuffle awkwardly, but he is interrupted by the sound of the door being pushed open with a sure hand. Inwardly, he’s grateful, as he wasn’t certain how the end of his sentence would have come out – _how did you know that? How did you get to be so unfairly beautiful? How did you say that with the confidence of someone who has learnt a very specific, private detail about my life by just looking at me for the few minutes we’ve known each other?_

John wonders quite wildly if this strange man has a microchip in his head, or possesses a google search engine in place of a brain. He immediately scolds himself for having had the idea, as the man before him is surely the most undeniably human creature he has ever come into contact with. Whether he proves to be a genius or a magician remains to be seen, but something tells John that no magician would appear so content to perform before such a small audience.

Sherlock knows who’s at the door before he sees them.

“Ah, Molly, coffee. Thank you.”

The phone is passed back to its rightful owner without eye contact, Sherlock resolving not to allow himself the luxury of openly staring at this wonderful anomaly any longer. John feels strangely as though he’s floating while a mousy woman slips past him to hand over a mug of steaming coffee.

“What happened to the lipstick?”

“It wasn’t working for me.”

John turns his head and sees their hands touch over the cup. He can’t decide if they’re together or not, but feels like he’s intruding on something as they continue to exchange brisk conversation.

“Really? I thought it was a big improvement. Your mouth’s too – small now.”

 _Probably not together_ , John thinks with a frown. At least, he hopes they’re not. Not that he really cares about strangers’ love lives, of course.

“Okay.” Molly’s voice wavers: a lit matchstick held upright for too long.

Sherlock is too distracted, far too interested in other current circumstances to quite bring himself to care. He needs to choose his next words carefully.

“How do you feel about the violin?” Why is his voice doing that? Something inside him clenches a little in apparent distress at his own blasé tone.

John looks first at the departing woman, then at Mike, who only grins – a little smugly, at that.

“Sorry, what?” The feeling of bobbing up and down in a large body of water resurfaces.

“I play the violin when I’m thinking. Sometimes I don’t talk for days on end. Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other.” He smiles something huge that could too easily be misconstrued as sardonic and regrets it with the startling immediacy of a punch to the stomach.

Sherlock knows this could go awry in an instant. The words are audacious, and his forced disinterest is at striking odds with the fascination he feels for this man. Frankly, he’s typing nonsense on his laptop solely in a bid to occupy his hands and let out some of the manic energy currently flaring within, in response to the prospects before him.

It is also no secret to him that his playing the violin and being prone to extended bouts of silence are not his worst qualities, nor is the latter even entirely true. But for some unknown reason and with more fervour than he knows how to explain rationally, Sherlock _wants._ He wants to persuade this profoundly _different_ man to room with him, even if that requires lying about his proficiency in ever being able to shut up.

“Oh, you … you told him about me?” John’s brain feels sluggish; he curses its lethargy in the presence of this man’s mysterious omniscience.

“Not a word.” Mike shakes his head.

“Then who said anything about flatmates?”

Glad that he’d turned to retrieve his coat, Sherlock clenches his eyes shut for just a second. John sounds unconvinced. But Sherlock is committed now: he might as well see the thing through to its possibly-bitter end.

“I did. Told Mike this morning that I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for. Now here he is, just after lunch with an old friend, clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan.” He winds his scarf around his neck with a practiced loop, finding his eyes drawn to lock with John’s as he turns to face him again. “Wasn’t that difficult a leap.”

“How _did_ you know about Afghanistan?”

 _No time now,_ Sherlock tells himself, avoiding eye contact again. _If he’s interested, he can ask later._

“Got my eye on a nice little place in central London. Together we ought to be able to afford it.” Pausing an arm’s reach from John, he cycles through the details once more. _Yes, this man is new and fascinating and_ different. _Worth the embarrassing amount of mental fortitude._ “We’ll meet there tomorrow evening, seven o’clock. Sorry – got to dash. I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary.”

Sherlock has to admit, if only inwardly, that it’s possible the last addition had been a bit much. It’s awfully fun, though, this elaborate attempt to entice a stranger to himself. _Oh god, is this a less exhausting fragment of what dating is like?_ He makes to sweep from the room, hoping to depart from _that_ particular thought.

John blinks a few times before his brain catches up with his ears. “Is that it?” he calls to the other man’s back.

“Is that what?” Sherlock turns towards John, taking a few steps closer as an afterthought.

“We’ve only just met and we’re going to go and look at a flat?” Despite the man’s words, Sherlock can see the edges of his mouth tugging upwards into a smile. Perhaps a begrudging one, but a smile nonetheless.

“Problem?”

A glance at Mike and a shared smile that verges on beaming.

“We don’t know a thing about each other, I don’t know where we’re meeting – I don’t even know your name.”

Sherlock lowers his chin and looks at John. This man, whom he’s only just met but he feels some kind of pull towards, some desire to expend a little more effort than usual, some need to impress.

Maybe Mike knows him more than he gives him any credit for, because John Watson is special.

“I know you’re an army doctor and you’ve been invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you’ve got a brother who’s worried about you but you won’t go to him for help because you don’t approve of him – possibly because he’s an alcoholic, more likely because he recently walked out on his wife. And I know that your therapist thinks your limp’s psychosomatic – quite correctly, I’m afraid.” John shifts, follows Sherlock’s gaze down to his leg. Sherlock almost feels remorse for the provoked discomfort. “That’s enough to be going on with, don’t you think?”

Sherlock tries to make a hasty yet gracious exit in the wake of his deductions, but logic stalls him, bringing him to lean around the door and back into the room.

“The name’s Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221B Baker Street.” He adds a called, “Afternoon,” in farewell to Mike before swinging himself around the door and outside.

“Yeah. He’s always like that,” comes Mike’s voice, drifting after him several moments later. It is followed by the door snapping shut.

Sherlock strides down the corridor, takes the first left in the opposite direction of the exit, a subsequent right, and then stops. He glances back behind him before leaning against a wall, suddenly feeling the need to catch his breath.

Did he wink? _Oh god, why did I_ wink _of all things, what if I’ve ruined it all now?_ His chest rises as he sucks in a lungful of sterilised air. He feels like crumpled balls of paper in an overflowing rubbish bin under a work desk; like frustrated fingers tugging through hair and ideas discarded and scribbled over for good measure.

He feels like his thoughts are useless.

Patting the pockets of his coat, he’s appreciative that in amongst all of his haphazard thoughts, he’d somehow managed to retain sufficient presence of mind to put his phone in one of them before he’d left the laboratory. His mobile shows an unread message.

Sherlock should feel a little stupid, standing alone in a hallway, grinning down at his mobile phone like this. He should feel ashamed of his own lack of decency in this moment – but he doesn’t.

Instead, Sherlock stares at the text message and thinks, _‘Oh’ indeed._

**Author's Note:**

> So this was somewhat inspired by a tweet from [ContactSH](https://twitter.com/ContactSH) far too long ago for me to recall the exact wording/explanation. It was about the usage of the word 'oh' and the dubious circumstances of Sherlock needing to use another mobile phone when first encountering John.
> 
> However, my main inspiration was a very cute little drawing/comic that I first saw a few weeks ago and have since _lost and never again been able to find._ It featured Sherlock running from the lab at Bart's and exclaiming to himself something to the effect of: "Did I wink? Oh my god, did I wink?" If you have any idea what I'm talking about with this, please do comment or [tweet me](https://twitter.com/cherieftpotter) about it! I would love to credit and link to the artist!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, I appreciate it immensely. <3


End file.
